


The Shakes

by Funkspiel



Series: Kinktober 2017 [13]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Addiction, M/M, Whump, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funkspiel/pseuds/Funkspiel
Summary: Percival Graves has been rescued, but no one can save him from himself. From the memory of Its taste - The Potion.Day 17: Withdrawal





	The Shakes

**** The shakes plague him more than the memories. The memories he can swallow down. The memories he can bury beneath paperwork. But paperwork only reminds him of the shakes, thin sheets quivering audibly in his hands. Forcing him to lay it flat on the table, to press his palms against its surface and pretend that every atom in his skin and his muscles isn’t trying to separate from one another violently.

And when he isn’t shaking, he feels light of breath. Coffee makes it worst, which is almost the worst part, because even when he could convince himself they hadn’t forgotten him, he dreadfully missed coffee. But he needs the coffee, because it’s the only thing that keeps the headaches at bay. Pain between his temples, just behind his eyes — pressure that builds, make sharp and searing by the light. 

So he keeps himself in his office as much as he can. He mutes the lights, he seals the doors and he waits for the shaking to pass. Because Grindelwald took many things from him, but he won’t let him take any more of his dignity. Not after his aurors found him wasting away in his own home, thin and delirious with whatever potion he had been using to keep him at bay. High as fuck and singing at the top of his lungs in a pale parody of the accent of the man who had taught him the tune in the first place. He can’t remember how it started. In all honesty, he can’t remember how long it had even lasted.

He remembers only the high. The way it lifted his bones. The way he felt sharper, keener, faster — better in every way. Content and happy and powerful. Free.

He remembers only the high and the terrible, terrible lulls between potions.

Thinking of it makes him ache. The Potion. Red and lovely. Thick and smooth and chill as death, with the flavor of the apple that felled man according to the Book the No-Majs were always going on about. The thought makes his tongue dry, thick and swollen in his mouth. His gums ache, his bones quiver, and not for the first time he thinks he won’t survive this — his life after his rescue. 

He tries to convince himself it’ll get better, but every day is worse. Aches and pains and fatigue building upon each other with each passing hour like sand tumbling upon itself in an hour glass toward the inevitable. 

Food tastes like ash in comparison to The Potion. Water feels pale by comparison. The healers promised it would pass, with time. It doesn’t. Not even whiskey helps him forget. His men and women watch him with eyes ready to reach out and steady him, as though the wind might take him, and that only makes it worse.

They hadn’t noticed he was gone and now all they could see what his weaknesses, his inadequacies. 

He won’t survive this, and thirty long days after his return to work, he finally gives in. He goes to him, their prisoner. Late at night when the lights dim and plague his eyes less. When the guards are less. No one questions his presence. He sweeps past them like a memory, and he wonders if they will remember his visit like they remembered him in the face of Grindelwald’s farce. 

The question doesn’t plague him long. It evaporates immediately, in fact, the moment he stands in front of the bars that separates Grindelwald from the rest of the world. All thought does. His mouth salivates like Pavlov’s dogs at the sight of that grinning face, because that face was always chased with The Potion. The red and the sweet and the smooth fall in his mouth, filling his empty belly, helping him forget the ache of starvation. He licks his lips before he can stop himself and immediately feels ashamed, though he hides it behind the heavy clench of his jaw. 

“My boy,” Grindelwald purrs from the dark, “You don’t look well. In fact, I daresay you look worse than last I saw you. Perhaps I was good for your health.”

Graves snorts, and it’s a sharp and aching thing that spills from him. 

“What was in it?”

A white grin splits the shadows, peeling his face in half. 

“You miss me.”

“What was in it?” Graves snarls, storming up to the bars, murder in his eyes, because Reaper take him, he’d murder for another taste. Just one. “What did you do to me?”

“I imagine the healers told you it’s withdrawal. I call it insurance.”

“All it ensures is that I’m going to pull your windpipe from your throat before you ever get a trial.”

“Cute, such a yappy puppy you are. All bark, no bite. Just like before. So calm once you got a taste. So good.”

He grips the bars to hide the way he shakes and glares at him.

“What. Was in. The Potion?”

With a sigh, Grindelwald slowly leans forward so that his face and his hands fall more into the light of his dank cell. With the patience of an entertainer, he lifts one hand to Graves’ eyes and the director can not help but feel captivated. He watches as a claw splits the human tip of Grindelwald’s fingers like butter. Stilling his heart as it pulled upon the madman’s vulnerable wrist, exposing a brilliant bloom of red. The scent is heady, heavy and tangy like The Potion that plagued his dreams. His teeth ached and his tongue wept and his bones sang for a sip. Even the bars cannot hide his excitement, his need. 

Blood drops in heavy, pregnant bulbs to splatter on the stone, and Graves weeps for the loss, for the waste. He keens before he can stop himself, all but pressing himself into the bars, and behind them Grindelwald croons.

“I knew you missed me, little one. It’s alright. You can have me. Forever. All you have to do is open the door and let me go.”

Graves shakes.


End file.
